BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Memento EPFL// BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Prof. Peidong Yang : Liquid Sunlight®\, Made from CO2 DTSTART:20251118T111500 DTEND:20251118T121500 DTSTAMP:20260512T045925Z UID:25137bf2828395e322964c3e20a58f92d0dfa93ba716f3caf578caa7 CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars DESCRIPTION:Prof. Peidong Yang\nDpt of Chemistry & Materials Science and E ngineering\nUniversity of California\, Berkeley \nAbstract : Liquid sunl ight can be considered as a new form of chemical energy converted and stor ed in chemical bonds from solar energy. Efficient capture and storage of s olar energy can provide unlimited renewable power sources and drive the ca pture and conversion of greenhouse gases such as CO2 into valuable chemica ls. Solar-to-chemical production using a fully integrated system is an att ractive goal\, but to date\, there has yet to be a system that can demonst rate the required efficiency\, and durability\, or be manufactured at a re asonable cost. One can learn a great deal from natural photosynthesis wher e the conversion of carbon dioxide and water to carbohydrates is routinely carried out at a highly coordinated system level. There are several key f eatures worth mentioning in these systems: spatial and directional arrange ment of the light-harvesting components\, charge separation and transport\ , as well as the desired chemical conversion at catalytic sites in compart mentalized spaces. To design an efficient artificial photosynthetic materi als system\, at the level of the individual components: better catalysts n eed to be developed\, new light-absorbing semiconductor materials will nee d to be discovered\, architectures will need to be designed for effective capture and conversion of sunlight\, and more importantly\, processes need to be developed for the efficient coupling and integration of the compone nts into a complete artificial photosynthetic system. In this talk\, I wil l introduce the original nanowire-based photochemical diode system design and discuss the challenges associated with fixing CO2 through traditional chemical catalytic means\, contrasted with the advantages and strategies t hat biology employs through enzymatic catalysts to produce more complex mo lecules at higher selectivity and efficiency. Introducing microorganisms a s whole-cell catalysts into the overall photochemical diode system led to the generation of powerful photosynthetic biohybrids capable of converting sunlight\, H2O\, and CO2 into food\, fuels\, pharmaceuticals\, and materi als.\n\nBio : Peidong Yang is a Chemistry professor\, S. K. and Angela Ch an Distinguished Chair Professor in Energy at the University of California \, Berkeley. He is a senior faculty scientist at the Materials and Chemica l Sciences Division\, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is a membe r of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Art s and Sciences\, and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow.\n\nProf. Yang is known particularly for his work on semiconductor nanowires and their photonic\, electronics\ , and energy applications\, including nanolasers\, gate-all-around transis tors\, and artificial photosynthesis. He is the director of the California Research Alliance by BASF and the Kavli Energy Nanoscience Institute at B erkeley.  He is an Executive Editor for the Journal of the American Chemi cal Society.\n\nDr. Yang received his B.A. in Chemistry from the Universit y of Science and Technology in China in 1993. He then received his Ph.D. i n Chemistry from Harvard University in 1997\, and did his postdoctoral fel lowship at the University of California\, Santa Barbara. Soon after\, he j oined the faculty at the University of California\, Berkeley. He is the re cipient of Global Energy Prize\, MacArthur Fellowship\, E. O. Lawrence Awa rd\, Alan T. Waterman Award\, ACS Nanoscience Award\, MRS Medal\, ACS Baek eland Medal\, Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics\, Alfred P. Sloan research fellowship\, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Young Investigator Awar d\, National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award\, MRS Young Inves tigator Award\, ACS Pure Chemistry Award.  He is the 2014 Thomas Reuters Citation Laureate for Physics. LOCATION:Tseuzier https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==I17%204%20K2 https://epfl.zo om.us/j/65378030944 STATUS:CONFIRMED END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR